1. Field
Exemplary embodiments relate to an indoor location measuring technique, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for dividing an indoor area into a predetermined number of sectors to measure an indoor location, and a method and apparatus for collecting information of access points.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the development of mobile communication techniques, studies have been actively made on location measuring techniques that measure a location of a mobile terminal in a communication network. Typically, a Global Positioning System (GPS)-based location measuring technique using satellites has been widely spread and used.
The GPS-based location measuring technique has a disadvantage of having to mount a GPS receiver on a mobile terminal. Also, since the GPS-based location measuring technique was developed by the U.S. Department of Defense for military use, a high-precision GPS-based location measuring technique is not disclosed. Furthermore, the GPS-based location measuring technique has limited use since the GPS-based location measuring technique is useless in buildings, for example, houses, offices, or shops, where satellite signals cannot be received. To overcome these drawbacks, attempts have been made to measure a location using an access point for a wireless local area network (WLAN) service.
The WLAN service enables mobile users to use the wireless Internet by connecting to a WLAN access point installed within a short-range area with user terminals, for example, notebook computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), smart phones, and the like, that have WLAN cards mounted therein. Recently, to meet the increasing demand for the WLAN service, installation of access points in buildings, such as large-scaled shopping malls, and the like, has been increasing.
Since many access points have now been installed in buildings, a location of a mobile terminal can be measured in buildings by these access points, where a GPS-based location measuring technique cannot be applied.
Accordingly, research and development on a location measuring technique using an access point for a WLAN service has recently been flourishing. In the location measurement using an access point, the most important consideration is construction of a database. The larger the number of indoor access point information stored in the database and the higher the accuracy of the indoor access point information, the higher the accuracy of location measurement.
So far, a method for collecting information of outdoor access points has been used to collect information of indoor access points. This method collects information of nearby access points by using a scanning car traveling on the road. Accordingly, information of indoor access points is collected along a predetermined path in a building, such as a corridor, in the same way as information of outdoor access points is collected.
However, indoor location measurement using access point information collected only along a predetermined path in a building such as a corridor has a problem of increasing the error in location measurement. The indoor location measurement using the triangulation method uses collection location coordinates of the corridor near the center of the building where access point information is collected. Therefore, the finally obtained location coordinates may be inclined to focus on the center of the building.
Also, information of outdoor access points is automatically collected whereas information of indoor access points is manually collected. Thus, in the case of indoor location measurement, the accuracy of access point information is low and a lot of time is consumed to collect access point information.
Furthermore, indoor location measurement is based on imaginary location coordinates. Accordingly, indoor location measurement is impossible to interact with outdoor location measurement using actual latitude and longitude coordinates.